NC Supreme Court rejects main Griffin ballot challenge — but some votes remain in jeopardy
The North Carolina Supreme Court on Friday partially ruled against Judge Jefferson Griffin’s effort to throw out 65,000 ballots in the 2024 election — but left open the possibility for thousands of votes to be discarded.
The majority ruled that the largest category of voters challenged by Griffin could not have their votes thrown out, because the registration issues at hand were not their fault — but the fault of the State Board of Elections.
“Generally, absent fraud, negligence on the part of the government official charged with properly registering and entering voters onto the voter rolls should not negate the vote of an otherwise lawful voter,” the opinion, authored by Republican Justice Trey Allen, said.
Those 60,000 voters, who were challenged for lacking a driver’s license or Social Security number in the state’s database, made up the vast majority of Griffin’s protests.
The ruling from the Republican-majority court deals a major blow to the five-month campaign by Griffin and the state Republican Party to overturn his 734-vote loss to Democratic incumbent Allison Riggs.
It comes just one week after the Court of Appeals ruled in Griffin’s favor, giving most of the challenged voters 15 days to prove their eligibility or have their votes discarded.
But the Supreme Court’s decision is not a total win for Riggs — and could still result in the election results being overturned.
Thousands of ballots from military and overseas voters who did not provide photo identification could still be in jeopardy. The court ruled that these voters would be given 30 days to prove their eligibility or risk having their votes thrown out.
The State Board of Elections approved a specific exemption to the ID requirement for these voters, but the court ruled that it violated the law.
The state GOP praised the ruling. “The decision today brings this election one step closer to a conclusion ensuring every legal vote will be counted,” NC GOP spokesperson Matt Mercer said in a statement Friday.
Riggs, meanwhile, moved quickly to bring the issue to federal court, seeking to block the decision.
“I’m the proud daughter of a 30-year military veteran who was deployed overseas, and it is unacceptable that the court is choosing to selectively disenfranchise North Carolinians serving our country, here and overseas,” Riggs said in a statement.
It is not clear exactly how many military and overseas votes are affected by the court’s order. Griffin initially challenged about 1,400 voters from only Guilford County for this reason, but later tried to add thousands more ballots from other Democratic counties past the challenge deadline.
The majority’s opinion does not specify which counties are included in its order.
In a dissenting opinion, Democratic Justice Anita Earls railed against this disparate treatment of votes.
“The vote of an overseas or military voter who is registered in Wake County and who voted pursuant to the laws applicable at the time is counted,” she wrote. “However, the vote of an overseas or military voter who is registered in Guilford County is presumed to be fraudulent and will not count unless that voter provides proof of their identity within thirty business days. Explaining how that is fair, just, or consistent with fundamental legal principles is impossible, so the majority does not try.”
The majority also agreed to entirely throw out over 250 votes from so-called “Never Residents.” These are the adult children of North Carolina residents who have American citizenship, but have never resided in the state themselves.
Earls and Republican Justice Richard Dietz dissented from the majority on these points, saying that no votes should be thrown out from voters who followed the rules at the time of the election.
Dietz wrote that by refusing to hear the case in full and instead issuing a special order, the court missed an opportunity to prevent “judicial tampering in election results.”
“The door is open for losing candidates to try this sort of post-election meddling in state court in the future,” he said. “We should not allow that.”
Earls warned that even though the court decided not to cancel the majority of votes, it had still set a dangerous precedent.
“It is no small thing to overturn the results of an election in a democracy by throwing out ballots that were legally cast consistent with all election laws in effect on the day of the election,” she wrote. “Some would call it stealing the election, others might call it a bloodless coup, but by whatever name, no amount of smoke and mirrors makes it legitimate.”
The State Board of Elections said in a statement that it is reviewing the effects of court decisions and would provide instructions later on how voters should comply.
This story was originally published April 11, 2025 at 5:10 PM with the headline "NC Supreme Court rejects main Griffin ballot challenge — but some votes remain in jeopardy."
